Tuesday, 21 December 2010

Sepia Saturday 55 : Seasonal Open House

The above illustration is entitled "Making The Empire Christmas Pudding" and it dates back some eighty years and was originally published by an organisation called "The Empire Marketing Board". The Board - rather like the Empire - eventually came to an end and its archives were incorporated into the British National Archives. The illustration forms part of the National Archives' contribution to Flickr's Commons initiative which means that it is freely available for bloggers to use for non profit-making purposes. Thus the illustration has a double resonance : it helps us here on Sepia Saturday celebrate the Festive Christmas Season, and it also celebrates the idea of images being freely exchanged for the delight of their content rather than their money-making potential.

Sepia Saturday 55 is special as it is a Seasonal Open House. The Linky List will remain open throughout the Christmas and New Year holiday period. If you have a Sepia Saturday (or A Sepia Sunday, Sepia Monday ...etc) post just provide a link on the list below. You can add as many - or as few - links as you want. The "normal" Sepia Saturday arrangements will return for Sepia Saturday 56 which will be on Saturday 8th January 2010.

All that remains is for me to wish all Sepia Saturday contributors an excellent and enjoyable Christmas and New Year. As Bing Crosby used to sing : "May your days be merry and bright, And may all your Christmases be sepia".

24 comments:

I have often read about Christmas pudding in literature but never tasted it. I wish I was there in your good country to enjoy it. What a beautiful image; how interesting that the word empire is used. What empires exist today?

I'm in early with a family Christmas photo from 1928. Merry Christmas to all!

Paul C - on my other site I have a "modern" recipe for Christmas pudding - http://gramsrecipebox.com search for plum pudding. My grandmother used to make it in Pennsylvania. It's not too difficult, a bit like fruitcake.

I've made plum puddings several times with a modernized recipe I perfected over the years. I'd make them right after Thanksgiving and then moisten often with brandy. They're an acquired taste, but with enough brandy and a delicious hard sauce everyone will quickly acquire a taste for plumb pudding. Merry Christmas everyone!!! (The second of my 2 links will take you to my blog.)

Apparently my post did not post so I will try this again. This way I'm covering myself if the first post does show up.

My contribution to this special weeks Sepia Saturday is "One Man's Christmas." HIs story will unfold over the next 4 days with part 1 today. Be sure to stop back at my site each day to see the remaining three photos.

Merry Christmas everyone. I love the illustration of the lady making the Christmas pudding.No time lately for Sepia Saturday but it looks like we've got a Christmas present of extra time so maybe later.

That's a spectacular wedding photo in the banner! Just found your site thanks to your nice comment on mine. I love these pix! Can't add one now as I'm preparing to celebrate NYE with many friends at our home tonight. I'm thinking of my grandfather, who boarded a ship for America 100 years ago TODAY--NEW YEAR'S EVE. What a way to ring in the new!

Sepia Saturday

Launched by Alan Burnett and Kat Mortensen in 2009, Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, all we ask is that your sign up to the weekly Linky List, that you try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and that you have fun.